December 2009

Ten years on the web End of a decade — one for which there is
still no settled name.
This will probably take care of itself. You don't really need a name for a decade until it's past and gone. We didn't
talk about
"the sixties" in the sixties, though we haven't stopped talking about them since.

There have been lots of imaginative names suggested for the decade now drawing to its close — the
Aughts, the Ooze (for
"00s"), and so on — but my guess is we'll end up with something pedestrian, probably "the two
thousands."

For me personally it was the web decade. I did my first web
commentary on March 27, 2000. I've continued to turn out 70 or 80 pieces a year every year since, though the
bigger part of my ad hoc commentary
on NRO nowadays goes into Radio Derb. I have also engendered
a mass of paper journalism and
three books. Not bad.
"The single talent well employed," I like to think, anyway. For
keeping
discontent at bay, there is no better rule than the one sailors have traditionally offered to prevent seasickness:
"Stay busy, and keep your
eyes on the horizon."

Where things haven't drifted leftwards, they've just stayed the same. In 1999 we had a
huge army stationed in Germany, though nobody could tell me why. It's still there, and still no-one can tell me why. We
entered the decade with four
conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court; we leave it with four conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court. Oh, and
the mohair subsidy is
back.

Dereliction of duty In
an NRO column this
month I said some unkind
things — along with some kind ones — about Steven Landsburg's new book
The
Big Questions. Steven is a total open-borders proponent, one of those people willing to test how many
of the earth's 6.7 billion people would come and settle in the USA if there were nothing to prevent their doing so.
(My guess? Three to four
billion. The open-borders crowd's guess? Try getting them to tell you.)

Steven posted some comments on my remarks in his
blog for the book.
(Note: When a person publishes a book nowadays, he starts a blog for it. "Is there a
WAD
blog then?" I hear a multitude of voices cry. Is a bean green?)

Me having lunged at Steve, he having parried en sixte and riposted, a short bout has commenced. The
usual thing is for three or four
more thrusts and counter-thrusts, with victory decided on points. But here's the thing: I can't be bothered.

I'll admit I'm uncomfortable about not being bothered. For one thing, it's disrespectful to Steve, who seems to
be a decent sort, the
open-borders nuttiness aside. The guy has a blog to keep going, and a book to sell. (Did I mention that I too have
a blog and
a
book? I did? Sorry.)

Nor is it that I don't have things to say in response to Steve. I have plenty. Trouble is, I've already said
them all, three or four times.
See my long exchanges with Gideon Aronoff
here, for
example. I think they contain answers to all of Steve's arguments. There are writers who don't mind hammering away at
the same points over and over
again. I'm not one of those writers.

And, to be blunt about it, the open-borders business is so nutty I can't take it seriously. Come on: it's
nutty —
flat-earth nutty,
Elvis-sighting nutty, Eisenhower-was-a-communist nutty. You don't want any restrictions on immigration at
all? Into a nation with
2008 per capita GDP
of $47,500 from a world
containing populous nations with per
capita GDP of $900? YOU'RE
NUTS!

It may be that I'm being uncharitable. It may even be, though I think it extremely unlikely, that I'm
concocting excuses for my own
sloth. Readers with more patience (or energy, or something) are welcome to fill in for me over at Steve's blog, making
the case that this is a pretty
nice country just as it is, and would not be anything like as nice if its population were, over a handful of years, to
be multiplied tenfold.

That the case needs making seems, to me, astounding.

State of unhappiness I'm not very surprised to learn that I live in the
unhappiest state of the Union.
So say researchers Andrew Oswald, Stephen Wu, and Peter Dunn in a paper published
here.

What's Louisiana doing up at number one in the rankings, though? They can't be serious.
Louisiana? Hawaii at number two I can
believe, lingering
as I still am in the warm afterglow of this year's family vacation there. Tennessee's number four position is
interesting. You don't hear much about
Tennessee, which probably means it's a nice place. And who can
resist a sneer of schadenfreude seeing California down at number 46? All my life the damn Golden Staters have
been boasting about their damn
climate, their damn beaches, their damn girls, their damn hedonism, their damn Silicon Valley whiz-kids. Now look
where it's all got them! Nyah
nyah.

Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs — we are actually talking about 1963 —
someone urged me to read Arthur
Koestler's book The Sleepwalkers. I duly read it. I am absolutely not going to get into Phil. of
Sci. arguments about the book's
central idea, but it did give me a liking for Koestler as a writer. Over the next few years I read all (I think) of
his books. I've quoted him
considerably, and have even got a column or two out of him — see
here, for example.

Just let me translate that word "interested" for you. On the lips of a freelance book reviewer,
"interested" means:
"I bet I can get some sucker of a literary editor to give me the book for review, thereby snaffling a couple
hundred dollars for the E.M. and
D.O. Derbyshire college fund, and a free book into the bargain." I girded up my loins and set out to find that
editor.

My first call was of course on National Review's literary editor, Mike Potemra. I had better explain
that several dozen
significant books are published every month, so that a literary editor needs to (gasp!) discriminate. He needs, I mean,
to have firm ideas about what
books are and are not suitable for his particular magazine — and, indeed, about which reviewers are suitable
for which books. That's
the literary editor's domain, and he is jealous of his rights in it, as he should be. Well, Mike thought the Koestler
bio was borderline for
NR. He hummed and hahed politely, said he'd give it some thought.

I took that as a no and headed down the road to the offices of The New Criterion. David Yezzi was at
home, and
hospitable as ever. Alas, he already had a reviewer assigned to the
Koestler book. We stood chatting outside the door of his office for a few moments anyway: about the reviewer, about the
upcoming Christmas parties,
and of course about Koestler.

You need to know at this point that among Koestler's own books was one titled The Roots of Coincidence
(1972). In his later years
Koestler tagged on to a variety of semi-mystical and parapsychological fads. One of these enthusiasms was for
coincidences, and what they tell us
about the nature of reality. That's what The Roots of Coincidence is about.

Well, there I was standing with David Yezzi outside his office talking about Arthur Koestler. There were books
all around us, great heaps and
drifts of them. The New Criterion is one of those places where, if you want to take a seat, or put something
down, or even just open a door,
you first have to move a couple of dozen books. The wall just to my right had books piled about four feet high against
it.

I mentioned to David that I had already seen one review of this new Koestler biography, in the New
Yorker. Who was the reviewer?
asked David. I knew the answer, but had one of those odd episodes where you just can't summon up a name.

"It was … it was …" I fumbled. I glanced down. On top of the nearest pile of
books by the wall at my right
was one by Louis Menand, his name prominent on the dust jacket. And
that was the name I
was fishing for. The guy
who'd reviewed the bio of Koestler. Who had written a book about coincidences. Uh …

Lipogrammatically yours It's odd how things work out with your offspring.
My girl child, now 17, is
bookish — is, in fact, halfway through my supply of classic fiction. My son, by contrast, will pick up a
book only to avoid major
sanctions from Dad and Mom. So it was a thrill to find Danny asking if I own a particular book. I was glad I could go
to my study, pull down that
book, and hand it to him. Alas, it wasn't plot, author, or stylistic virtuosity that had drawn my lad to it, but
gimmickry.
This book, a fairly long work of fiction, is a
lipogram (as also — by now you don't want
informing — is this part
of my Diary). My son was curious to look at such a work.

This book is not only a lipogram, it also contains lipogrammatical musings that sound oddly familiar. You know
"Ozymandias," no
doubt? Try this:

I know a pilgrim from a distant land
Who said: Two vast and sawn-off limbs of quartz
Stand on an arid plain …

Nor is mighty John Milton thought too high for our author's wit:

Whilst I do think on how my world is bound,
Now half my days, by this unwinking night,
My solitary gift, for want of sight,
Lain fallow …

Most striking of all, though, in my opinion, is his imitation of that glorious U.S. classic about a
bird — a black
bird
(though not a blackbird!):

Black
Bird

'Twas upon a midnight tristful I sat poring, wan and wistful,
Through many a quaint and curious list full of my consorts slain —
I sat nodding, almost napping, till I caught a sound of tapping,
As of spirits softly rapping, rapping at my door in vain.
"'Tis a visitor," I murmur'd, "tapping at my door in vain —
Tapping
soft as falling rain."

Miraculously (or so I think), our author maintains this trick through a full 18 stanzas! Amazing!

[You can't, I vow, grasp how much psychic strain builds up whilst constructing long lipograms. Mind if I unload?
Thanks … EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!]

Voting like a gentleman Democracy in England, 1835, from Thomas Arnold's
Passages in a
Wandering Life:

Some of the School Trustees were my father's good friends, but of the majority of them it may be
said that his Whig opinions were a sore subject with them, and caused them to regard him all along with
some misgiving, if not suspicion. But such a friend and supporter as Sir Grey Skipwith must have consoled him for
many cold looks and unappreciative words. Sir Grey was the Whig member for North Warwickshire for several years after
the passing of the
first Reform Bill. Naturally he was a Rugby trustee, for his fine old mansion of Newbold Hall was only about five miles
from Rugby,
and his family had been connected with Warwickshire for centuries. One could not imagine a more perfect type of the
"Fine old
English Gentleman." Brave, generous, kind-hearted, cheery, straightforward, and conscientious, he was a
candidate whom his constituents must have adored.

And in those days men did not conceal their politics! I do not pretend to say that for the destruction of
bribery the introduction of the ballot may not have been necessary and right ; but the old methods were
more congenial to the English nature. I recollect, one hot August day in 1835, going with my father
into the polling-booth at Dunchurch, when the contest between Sir Grey Skipwith and Mr. Bracebridge
of Atherston Hall, the Whig candidates, and two Tory candidates whose names I forget, was proceeding.
In the booth was a long table, at the far end of which were several gentlemen and officials. My father took
his stand at the end of the booth near the door, and removed his hat.

"What is your name?" asked an official.
"Thomas Arnold."
"What is the nature of your qualification?"
"Freehold."
"For whom do you record your vote?"
"Skipwith and Bracebridge."

A figure rose at the head of the table, and said with a bow, "Thank you, Dr. Arnold." This
was Captain Skipwith, one of Sir Grey's sons.

When there is honesty on both sides, surely nothing can be more satisfactory than a simple and open ceremony
like this; but if candidates will offer bribes, and voters will accept them, there is, I suppose, no help
for it but to resort to those apparently ignoble devices by which the secrecy of the ballot is secured.

Red Cliff Admiral Robert Willard
believes
that the Chinese "are
making a
strong effort to advance the idea of making an aircraft carrier operational between now and 2015." The ChiComs
already have a carrier:
the Varyag, which they bought as scrap
from the Ukraine seven years
ago. It's not likely the Varyag that Admiral Willard has in mind, though. The vessel is an old design, with a lot of
half-assed compromises in its
construction. The Chinese probably just want to use it for training. The key to carrier operations is planes landing
and taking off on deck, and
that is really, really difficult, as readers of
The
Right Stuff
will recall. It needs a lot of training.

Historically, China is as un-maritime a nation as it is possible to be while possessing a coastline. Everybody
knows about the voyages of the
"eunuch admiral" Zheng He back in the 15th
century. Those voyages were
just extravagant exercises in imperial aggrandisement, though, like pyramid-building. They had no practical military,
commercial, or colonizing
value.
The imperial court got bored with the idea at last. Most of the records were destroyed in a palace intrigue, and
everyone forgot the voyages had ever
happened.

If you ask a Chinese person to name the best-known naval battle in his country's history, he will almost
certainly answer: "Red
Cliff!" It's an interesting comment on the inwardness of Chinese culture and history that this greatest
of all Chinese naval
engagements took place 500 miles from the sea! It was actually fought on the Yangtse River in December of
a.d. 208 between the warlord of North China and the warlords of the
South and
West in alliance. (This was at the tail end of a dynasty, when central authority had broken down.) The key events,
part-fictionalized, occupy
chapters 43-49 of the great Chinese classic novel
Three
Kingdoms.

Now director John Woo has made a movie about the battle, titled of course Red Cliff. That was our
Saturday night rent-a-flick December
19. Would I recommend it? Not really. The first time I saw a computer-generated birds-eye view of a great battle scene,
I thought "that's
neat." The thing has long since worn out its welcome, though — by the second Lord of the
Rings movie, in my opinion.

The battle scenes in Red Cliff are anyway more than usually repetitive. To make time for them, much of
the narrative excitement of
the traditional accounts has been chopped out. The terrific verbal jousting of Chapter 43 in Three Kingdoms,
when the West's grand strategist
sells the idea of an alliance to the South's warlord, against opposition from the warlord's court, is cut down to three
or four curt exchanges. The
bolting together of the North's boats, allowing fire to spread among them more rapidly, is described; but there's no
mention of the fact that this
was suggested to the North's warlord by a daring plant from the other side, claiming it would save the North's troops
from motion
sickness … and so on.

The overall impression left is the one I get from most modern Chinese movies, and a great many Western ones too.
Our interest in subtle,
long,
connected narrative is fading away, presumably because we don't read much fiction for pleasure any more. In place of
narrative we have substituted
clever
surface effects, lighting up our eyeballs without engaging our brains. In the case of the Chinese, it's almost as if
movie directors are striving to
reinforce the stereotype about Chinese culture favoring the outward appearance of things with little regard for their
inner states.

Since China is still a dictatorship there's a remedy to hand. Let the authorities over there ban the making of
color movies for twenty years.
Nothing but black and white! You can still obsess about surface appearances in black and white, of course, but the
temptation isn't one-tenth as
great as when you have color to play with. They might ban computer-generated battle scenes while they're at it.

Bad Sex Prize The December issue of Literary Review contained
the shortlist for this year's Bad
Sex in Fiction award, and gruesome indeed are the specimens provided. I see from the magazine's website that
they now have a winner: Jonathan Littell's humongous (995 pages) novel
The
Kindly
Ones. I'll refrain from quoting the winning passage, since we're running a family website here. You can
read it for yourself, if you have the stomach.

Mightier than the sword I know, I gush too much about Literary
Review (in which I have no
interest, and which in fact HAS NOT SENT ME A BOOK TO REVIEW FOR YEARS). When I see it in the mailbox, I know I'm going
to lose a couple of hours'
work.

Picking up the book-reviewing theme again, and at the same time continuing on from the previous section, I
especially enjoyed Sara
Wheeler's review of Mels van Driel's Manhood: The Rise and Fall of the Penis. It's not in the
"highlights" on the Literary
Review website, so you'll have to get a subscription or cadge a copy of Literary Review.

Why anyone would think it worth while to write a 288-page book about the male organ of generation, I do not
know, but with Ms. Wheeler it's in
good hands (Look, you can't avoid double entendres in this zone, so I
won't bother trying. Ms. Wheeler sure didn't: she opens her review with "This was a stiff
assignment …") Did you know that
elephants masturbate with their trunks? That a wild boar's testicles weigh 750 grams (1 lb. 10 oz.)
apiece? That "in ancient
Greece it was considered favorable to sport a little appendage because big ones were associated with barbarians and
satyrs"? So many things in
the world to know.

Ms. Wheeler ends her review with: "The book is heavily illustrated. Avoid page 127." Talk about a
teaser! (Oh, dear.) I'd say she
sold 1,000 copies right there.

Math Corner Belated congratulations to the USA's
team in the International
Math Olympiad held in Bremen, Germany this July. The USA team ranked sixth among all 104 participating countries.
They won
two gold and four silver medals.

In case you think I'm slyly pushing male chauvinism with that (sly? moi?), I offer equally hearty, not
quite as belated
congratulations
to the USA team at the 2009 China Girls Mathematical Olympiad held in Amoy (which for some reason the newspapers
nowadays write "Xiamen"),
August 11-16. The tally there was two gold, three silver, and two
bronze.

To show the kind of thing these talented high-schoolers were up against, this month's brainteaser is from the
Amoy event.

Show that there are only finitely many triples (a,b,c) of positive integers
satisfying the
equation
abc = 2009(a + b + c)

In case you should think there are perhaps no such triples, here's one: (60,82,98). There now, I've
saved you the trouble of an
existence proof!

[And because this is early for a month-end diary, on account of the Christmas season, I'm not going to make you
wait till January 31 for a
solution. I've already posted one here.]